A New Perspective

Every time my boyfriend takes his boat out from a place he hasn’t been before, he always looks behind him as he leaves. The first time I saw him do it, I nagged him for not looking straight ahead. “If I don’t get a mental picture of it now,” he said, “I won’t be able to find my way back.”

His foresight reminded me of a drawing class I took one summer in college. On our first day of class, the teacher led us out of the building and brought us a few blocks away to this beautiful plaza. He sat us side-by-side along the curb and told us to draw what we saw down the narrow street in front of us. I wasn’t a very good drawer—heck, I’m still not a good drawer—but I found it very satisfying to precisely capture what was there. At the end of class, I was so proud of what I’d created. It looked so accurate.

But what happened next was really amazing. The teacher had us all look at each other’s drawings. Not to see everyone else’s talent, but for a much more important reason. Even though we had been staring at the same spot for the last hour, we were all seeing it from different angles. Suddenly looking at everyone else’s drawings we were able to see the street so much more fully, in all its magnitude.

Getting another person’s perspective has a way of giving things greater dimension. They become richer, bigger, more detailed. The world looks more full. Just by taking a moment to look at it from a new angle.

I was drawn to coaching to help people see their own lives from a new perspective. When there are more dimensions, there are more possibilities. Life has a way of opening up. Things that seemed wrong or impossible no longer do.

Do you have the full picture or have you only been seeing it one way?

This thought was written by Whitney Hess and first published on Monday, 10 February 2014.

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